[blindkid] Fwd: NY Times: Paterson's Exit Presents Worry With Each Step

[Brandy W]

I think he most needs people to be non judgmental and help him learn the
simple techniques that can calm his fears. The question is how to get to
him, and who is willing. Although in some ways he is acting like he is
having to deal with less than he should he seems really uneducated. Bran

Give the gift of Fun educational products  this holiday season!
Brandy Wojcik
Discovery Toys Educational Consultant and Team Leader
www.playtoachieve.com
Phone: 512) 689-5045
Ask me about:
*How you can do what I do and earn money sharing educational toys with the
ones you love,
*How to earn free Discovery Toys products while having fun with friends,
*Order a gift basket for any age


-----Original Message-----
From: blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindkid-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Deborah Kent Stein
Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2010 11:36 AM
To: NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Fwd: NY Times: Paterson's Exit Presents Worry With
EachStep



Can we reach out to this guy somehow?  ... I'll try not to say anything
cynical about his need for a salary of almost $400,000 ... It's hard, though
...

Debbie

----- Original Message -----
From: "Carol Castellano" <blindchildren at verizon.net>
To: <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2010 6:29 PM
Subject: [blindkid] Fwd: NY Times: Paterson's Exit Presents Worry With
EachStep


> This is a sad story.
> Carol
>
>>Subject: NY Times: Paterson's Exit Presents Worry With Each Step
>>Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2010 14:10:50 -0500
>>
>>From: "Pamela Gaston" <Pamela.Gaston at dhs.state.nj.us>
>>To: <Bernice.Davis at dhs.state.nj.us>,    <Pam.Ronan at dhs.state.nj.us>
>>
>>
>>NY Times: Paterson's Exit Presents Worry With Each Step By MICHAEL
>>  BARBARO He worries about how he will make a living. He wonders 
>>whether
>>  people will value him once he is out of office.
>>But when he thinks about the future, David A. Paterson, the legally
>>  blind governor of New York, is most unsettled by something more
>>  elementary: how to cross the street.
>>For years, a small army of state employees has done for Mr. Paterson
>>  what his predecessors did for themselves: they read him the 
>>newspaper,
>>  guided him up stairs and around corners, fixed his collar when it 
>>was
>>  sticking up, and even grabbed a quart of milk for him at the
>>  supermarket.
>>"If I go into a grocery store, the state police come in with me," he said.
>>"It's kind of like, hey, Governor, just tell us what you need and
>>  we'll get it for you. And, I know I have to adjust."
>>Many politicians who leave office struggle to adapt to civilian life,
>>  with its everyday letdowns and indignities - the sudden absence of
>>  solicitous aides and gun-toting bodyguards, jam-packed schedules and
>>  an ever-ringing telephone. But for Mr. Paterson, who can see nothing
>>  out of his left eye and only color and large objects out of his 
>>right,
>>  the transition will be extraordinary: after three decades in 
>>government,  he must now relearn  the basic routines and rituals of living
on his own.
>>In a wide-ranging interview, he spoke candidly, and at times
>>  emotionally, about how he was grappling with - and, in some cases,
>>  dreading - that change, saying he planned to enroll at a school for
>>  the blind that he last attended when he was 3 years old.
>>"I know it can be done," Mr. Paterson said, "but it's just the
>>  anticipation of it that gives me anxiety."
>>He also admitted to some concern about money and losing the lucrative
>>  perks that come with his post. He is looking for work in the 
>>business
>>  and academic worlds but has no job lined up, a fact that seemed to
>>  slightly nag at him.
>>He has sought the advice of former President Bill Clinton and former Govs.
>>George E. Pataki and Mario M. Cuomo about how to cope with the loss of
>>  title and stature. Most of what they tell him boils down to this: 
>>"It
>>  gets easier."
>>He acknowledged previously unknown strains on his family that
>>  accompanied his elevation to governor, especially on his teenage 
>>son,
>>  who has hated almost every minute of his father's tenure. At one
>>  point, Mr. Paterson said, he even told the boy he was sorry for
>>  becoming the state's chief executive.
>>He divulged the ways he had been teasing the incoming governor, Andrew M.
>>Cuomo, since his victory in November. And he offered a mediocre
>>  assessment of his own skills as a manager, giving himself a B-minus
>>  over the last four years. He said he had been reluctant to pack up 
>>the
>>  governor's mansion and his own office, once gently scolding a staff
>>  member for rushing him out.
>>(His last day is Dec. 31.)
>>But looming over the interview was Mr. Paterson's obvious unease about
>>  what awaits him. He conceded that he had put off confronting his new
>>  reality:
>>he has yet to schedule with his 22-year-old daughter a long-promised
>>  practice run on Harlem's sidewalks, subways and streets.
>>When Mr. Paterson was a boy, his parents were determined that he not
>>  be treated as disabled. Defying his doctors' advice, he never 
>>learned
>>  Braille, used a Seeing Eye dog or walked with a cane. Instead, he
>>  adapted: he memorized the city's subway system by listening to the
>>  conductors' announcements, learned to follow the lead of strangers 
>>at  crosswalks,
>>  and developed a system for catching cabs that would keep him from
>>  mistakenly boarding a passenger car.
>>The system was not perfect.  He recalled an incident a few years ago 
>>when, as a state senator, he  hailed what he thought was a taxi in 
>>Manhattan. At the end of the
>>  ride, the driver refused to take his fare. When Mr. Paterson pressed
>>  him, the man explained: 'I am not driving a taxi. I just saw you on 
>>the  street and thought you  might need a ride.' "
>>His survival skills atrophied when he became lieutenant governor in
>>  2007 - and governor a year later after Eliot Spitzer resigned amid  
>>scandal.
>>Suddenly, he was chief executive of the state, with a huge security
>>  detail and a domestic staff at the governor's mansion.
>>"The reality is that I had a pretty good sense of my own independence.
>>  But over the last four years," he said, "I haven't been on the subway.
>>  I haven't crossed a street by myself. Haven't gone into a restaurant
>>  by myself."
>>Mr. Paterson, 56, said he planned to attend classes at Helen Keller
>>  Services for the Blind and, if finances permitted it, hire a 
>>full-time
>>  aide to help guide him for the first year, in part to deal with
>>  strangers he expects will still approach him.
>>"It would probably be good for me to travel with somebody, because,
>>  who knows, I may have more pardon requests," he said mischievously.
>>Though he did not rule out running for office again someday, Mr. 
>>Paterson, who has earned $179,000 a year as governor, said he was
>>  eager to earn a bigger salary in the private sector. That would 
>>allow
>>  him to put his son through college and to replicate, at least in 
>>some
>>  ways, the comfortable life he has grown accustomed to.
>>"You have a false income when you're governor, because you live in the
>>  executive mansion," he said, ticking off the perks: free meals, free
>>  transportation, free staff. "And, so, if you computed that out to a
>>  salary, it's probably twice the governor's salary."
>>He confirmed that he had met with administrators at New York
>>  University and Touro College to discuss taking teaching positions. 
>>He
>>  has spoken with executives at a local talk radio station, WOR, about
>>  becoming a substitute host. So far, though, he has not hammered out
>>  any contracts. In the meantime, he has filled out paperwork to begin
>>  collecting a state pension.  (With 27 years, he can collect about  
>>$80,000 annually.) "I am worried about money, because I am not a 
>>billionaire, in case you
>>  hadn't heard," he said.
>>His advisers - old friends, current aides and former chief executives
>>  - have encouraged him to think big. Mr. Clinton, for instance, asked
>>  him to consider running a foundation in Harlem that would employ
>>  youngsters and cut energy costs by painting the roofs of buildings
>>  white to reflect sunlight.
>>"You want me to make all the roofs in Harlem white?" Mr. Paterson
>>  recalled asking Mr. Clinton inside the former president's office on  
>>125th Street.
>>Mr. Clinton nodded. "Don't you think Harlem has become white enough?" Mr.
>>Paterson asked him.
>>Over the last few weeks, he has conducted a distinctly Paterson-esque
>>  farewell tour across the state, much of it over local AM radio,
>>  dispensing frank and funny observations about himself and his
>>  colleagues. He has compared the news media in New York to the
>>  corruption-riddled Tammany Hall, and declared that the quality of
>>  lawmakers in Albany has plunged over the last two decades. "I am 
>>sorry
>>  to say this," he added, impishly.
>>He even made light of his own multiple run-ins with state prosecutors
>>  and ethics investigators, telling the audience at a Bronx school the
>>  other night that when he saw all the people in their seats, he 
>>figured
>>  he had walked into a grand jury room.
>>He had only good things to say about his predecessor and his successor.
>>Asked how he planned to welcome Mr. Cuomo, he has said he had already
>>  swept one big obstacle out of the governor-elect's path: he made 
>>sure
>>  the faulty outlet above the sink in the master bedroom of the
>>  governor's mansion got fixed.
>>"I said, 'This is important stuff, Andrew,' " he recalled. "'You don't
>>  know what it's like when you need to plug something in, like an
>>  electric razor, and you can't.' "
>>He even weighed in on Mr. Spitzer's show on CNN, which has suffered in
>>  the ratings and has led to a debate about whether his co-host,
>>  Kathleen Parker, has been unduly sidelined by the ex-governor. If
>>  anything, Mr. Paterson opined, the show needs to revolve more around
>>  Mr. Spitzer to showcase his brilliance.
>>He said he was looking forward to having a more normal family life,
>>  recounting the difficulties his wife and his son faced once he 
>>became
>>  governor.
>>"I don't think anything about me being governor ever looked like it
>>  made him happy," he said about the boy, Alex, now 16. Asked how it
>>  made him feel as a father, he responded: "Very guilty."
>>He and his wife, Michelle, grew so frustrated by tabloid photographers'
>>trying to shoot pictures of them as they vacationed poolside at a
>>  friend's house in the Hamptons that they grabbed the family camera 
>>and
>>  took pictures of the paparazzi, who they said were trespassing.
>>"While we found that funny, and it's a great story to tell," he said,
>>  "the reality is it was very hard to sit back and say, 'So how have 
>>you  been?'
>>Because you are both under this constant pressure."
>>Reflecting on his tenure, he paused for several seconds.
>>
>>"Some things went well, some things went not so well," he said. "It
>>  was a privilege. It was an honor. I would serve. I would do it again."
>>Still, he could not resist a joke, cheekily recalling the suddenness
>>  with which he landed in the governor's office.
>>"I would like two weeks' notice next time," he said.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>----------
>>This E-mail, including any attachments, may be intended solely for the 
>>personal and confidential use of the sender and recipient(s) named above.
>>This message may include advisory, consultative and/or deliberative 
>>material and, as such, would be privileged and confidential and not a 
>>public document. Any Information in this e-mail identifying a client 
>>of the Department of Human Services or the Department of Children and 
>>Families is confidential. If you have received this e-mail in error, 
>>you must not review, transmit, convert to hard copy, copy, use or 
>>disseminate this e-mail or any attachments to it and you must delete 
>>this message. You are requested to notify the sender by return e-mail.
>
> Carol Castellano
> National Organization of Parents of Blind Children
> 973-377-0976
> carol_castellano at verizon.net
> www.nopbc.org  _______________________________________________
> blindkid mailing list
> blindkid at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
> blindkid:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/dkent5817%40
> att.net


_______________________________________________
blindkid mailing list
blindkid at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for
blindkid:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/branlw%40sbcglobal
.net